What Ever Happened to Plasma Tvs?
Quick Linkshow Did a Plasma Tv Work? What Went Wrong? the Best Alternative to Plasma Tvs Rip Plasma Tvs Once Regarded for Their Picture Quality, Plasma Tvs No...
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Once regarded for their picture quality, plasma TVs no longer have a place in the market. But what led to the disappearance of this TV technology? And if you're looking for a plasma TV replacement, what should you get?
How Did a Plasma TV Work?
Before we talk about why plasma TVs lost favor with manufacturers, here's a quick refresher on how they worked.
Plasma TVs had tiny pockets of gas that released light when charged with electricity. Most of this light was ultraviolet, which is invisible. But when it hit the phosphor cells, it became visible and was used to produce the image that you saw on the screen. Each pixel in a plasma TV had three phosphor cells: red, green, and blue, and these primary colors were combined to make whichever color the TV required.
So essentially, plasma TVs were self-emissive and didn't need a backlight. This helped them have a superior contrast ratio as they could turn the individual pixels off when they needed to produce deep blacks, resulting in excellent picture quality.
Besides, the plasma TVs also had a quick response time, a very high refresh rate, and great viewing angles. All these characteristics helped plasma TVs win over the consumers.
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What Went Wrong?
Although plasma TVs had several positives, they were far from perfect. For example, they couldn't get very bright and were most suitable for dark-room viewing. Even the best plasma TVs could only reach just over 100 nits of peak brightness in a 10% window test. In comparison, the top modern LED-backlit TVs can offer over 1000 nits of peak brightness.
Plasma TVs were also susceptible to temporary and permanent image retention or burn-in. But it became less of an issue as the plasma technology matured.
Another downside to plasma TVs was their power consumption and heat generation. They required a lot of power to work and would need multiple internal fans to keep them cool. And lastly, while these TVs were lighter and thinner than CRT TVs, they were still heavy and thick.
Despite these disadvantages, plasma TVs continued to find buyers because the competing LCD TVs with CCFL backlighting shared some of plasma's downsides, such as high power consumption and thick chassis, while having worse picture quality.
But with the advent of LED backlighting, everything changed. The LED-backlit LCD TVs (LED TVs) were thinner and required much less power to work. Sure, the initial LED TVs trailed behind plasma in terms of picture quality and viewing angles, but when compared to LED TVs, the disadvantages of plasma TVs outweighed their advantages.
The last nails in the coffin of plasma TVs were the arrival of OLED and 4K TVs on the market. The plasma TV manufacturers realized that it would require considerable investment to try making 4K plasma TVs, and it wasn't just worth the effort. Plus, OLED TVs offered most of the picture quality advantages of plasma TVs without many downsides.
By 2014, TV manufacturers had virtually abandoned plasma TVs and were focusing on LED-backlit LCD and OLED TVs, both of which are the primary TV display technologies on the market at the time of writing in 2022.
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
